September 25, 2012

The news isn't good

There's a firestorm at The Globe and Mail over allegations premiere columnist Margaret Wente copied, plagarized, failed to attrubute or was careless in her commentary , thinking and attributions in a 2009 column. She's been discplined, although we don't know what that means.

Today, Wente published her defence over allegations raised last week by blogger Carol Wainio who operates Media Culpa.

The Globe announced disciplinary action against Wente in a story published today, saying her column, "fell short of its journalistic standards
when she failed to make it clear she was quoting someone else’s work in
one of her own pieces."

The paper did not detail what kind of disciplinary action was taken. It said she would continue to write for the paper.

The story, by its media reporter Steve Ladurantaye quotes Editor John Stackhouse:

“The journalism in this instance did not meet the standards of The
Globe and Mail, in terms of sourcing, use of quotation marks and
reasonable credit for the work of others. Even in the spirit of column writing, which allows for some latitude in
attribution and expression, this work was not in accordance with our
code of conduct, and is unacceptable."

“We’re not aware of any other situations,” he said.

Stackhouse wrote a memo to staff and was published in the paper. It can be found here.

In her words, Wente offers the following explanation and apology:

"I haven’t always lived up to my own standards. I’m sorry for my
journalistic lapses, and I think that, when I deserve the heat, I should
take it and accept the consequences. But I’m also sorry we live in an
age where attacks on people’s character and reputation seem to have
become the norm. Most of all, I regret the trouble I’ve created for my
Globe colleagues by giving any opening at all to my many critics. In an
ideal world, there wouldn’t be any openings. In the real world, there
are."

There's much typing and talking going on since the allegations began to unfold. Questions raised about integrity, accuracy, attribution, sloppiness and the role of a paper's ombud or public editor.

This whole mess lands like a punch in the stomach. Earlier this month, Craig Silverman (founder of Regret the Error) wrote a piece for Poynter called Journalism's summer of sin. In it, he outlines serious transgressions and antitodes and concludes with the following:

"2012 will go down as one of the worst summers for plagiarism, fabrication and ethical misdeeds in recent journalistic history.

My hope is that it’s also remembered as the summer when inconsistent guidelines and a damaging hypocrisy began to die.